More than two years ago, two women faced reporters in front of an Iowa government building and said they had tried to delay the installation of the Dakota Access Pipeline by setting fire to heavy machinery and using oxyacetylene torches to pierce steel valves.

Then the women, Ruby Montoya and Jessica Reznicek, picked up a crowbar and a hammer and began to pry letters from a government sign behind them. For that, they were promptly detained by state officials.

But their comments about damaging the pipeline did not appear to yield much of a response from prosecutors — until now.

On Wednesday, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa announced that a federal grand jury had charged the women with conspiracy to damage an energy facility, along with four counts each of malicious use of fire and the use of fire to commit a felony.

“Some may view these actions as violent, but be not mistaken,” Ms. Montoya said at the news conference in July 2017. “We acted from our hearts and never threatened human life nor personal property. What we did do was fight a private corporation that has run rampantly across our country seizing land and polluting our nation’s water supply.”

Federal prosecutors declined to comment on the timing of the indictment.

The 1,172-mile Dakota Access Pipeline, which is owned by Energy Transfer Partners and referred to as DAPL, stretches from the oil fields of western North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa, ultimately linking to other pipelines in Illinois.

The pipeline was opposed by many environmentalists and became a political lightning rod during its construction. Protests in North Dakota, led by the Standing Rock Sioux and attended by thousands of people over several months, occasionally resulted in violent clashes with law enforcement authorities.

The Standing Rock Sioux had said they did not want a pipeline installed under the Missouri River — a source of their drinking water — and that the pipeline’s route crossed through sacred ancestral lands. Critics also expressed concerns about oil spills, a lack of community consultation and a pattern of reliance on fossil fuels for energy.

Supporters of the pipeline said that it was safer and more efficient than transporting oil by truck or rail, and that it brought jobs and economic benefits to the communities along its path.

The protests succeeded in pressuring the government to delay completion of the project and consider alternate routes. But in the days after he took office, President Trump ordered an expedited review of the pipeline. Within weeks, the authorities had razed the protest camp and the Army had approved the pipeline’s construction.

Ms. Montoya and Ms. Reznicek said they began their campaign to damage the pipeline on the night of the 2016 presidential election. They focused mostly on Iowa.

Protests in that state had not garnered as much attention as the ones in North Dakota, but some farmers in Iowa had argued unsuccessfully in court that state regulators had been wrong to grant the pipeline company the power of eminent domain to force its way through their farms.

The women started their campaign by burning pieces of heavy machinery at a construction site in Buena Vista County, Ms. Montoya said at the 2017 news conference.

Then they researched effective ways to pierce steel pipes, and in March, they went to Mahaska County and used “oxyacetylene cutting torches to pierce through exposed, empty steel valves, successfully delaying completion of the pipeline for weeks,” Ms. Reznicek said.

“We then returned to arsonry as a tactic,” Ms. Montoya said. “Using tires and gasoline-soaked rags, we burned multiple valve sites, their electrical units, as well as additional heavy equipment located on DAPL easements throughout Iowa, further halting construction.”

Finally, in May 2017, the women tried to damage a valve in Wapello County and “discovered oil was flowing through the pipe,” Ms. Reznicek said. “This was beyond disheartening to us, as well as to the nation at large.”

The pipeline became officially operational in June 2017. Today, 570,000 barrels of oil flow through it every day.

“We support the right we all have as Americans to lawfully express our opinions, regardless of who agrees with them,” said Vicki A. Granado, a spokeswoman for Energy Transfer Partners. “However, when those actions cross the line and become unlawful, that becomes an issue for law enforcement and our legal system.”

Asked whether the pipeline was affected or delayed by arson in 2016 and 2017, she said the project was delayed “by a number of events, some of which can be attributed to the tactics of the opposition.”

If convicted, Ms. Montoya and Ms. Reznicek could face decades in prison. An F.B.I. investigation is underway, and a trial is scheduled for December before Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger of the United States District Court in Southern Iowa.

On Wednesday, Ms. Reznicek and her lawyer declined to comment. Ms. Montoya did not respond to messages requesting an interview.

At the news conference in 2017, Ms. Reznicek said she did not expect a fair trial. “We acted for our children, and the world that they are inheriting is unfit,” she said.

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